Hell's Consort

New Chapter for the Highest Tier (June 2021)

****************************

Archdemon Empress Luna

*****************************

"Apollyon." Luna's gaze flittered across the room as she stated the obvious aloud. "We are in Vinca Inn."

"I told you." Her husband said, his shrewd blue eyes narrowed at her.

Both of them were on their King-sized canopy bed while he knelt on the mattress while he still carried her in his arms.

Exhaling a heavy sigh, Luna just prayed that his outdoor shoes didn't mess up their pristine beddings.

"What happened at the gardens?" Luna titled her head at him with interest. "You informed me that you will be away to monitor the area and place barriers around us to alert us of intruders?"

"Indeed, there are intruders present the garden's domain." Apollyon began, but then he paused to correct himself, "—- well, they aren't intruders when all of them were assembled at the far entrance. I was pleasantly surprised that you didn't wake from the dragon's mighty roars."

"Roars?" Luna's brows knitted in confusion.

"Never mind."  Finally, Apollyon settled her gently on the bed of their luxurious suite. "By the time your clouded mind cleared from your deep sleep, the goddess already dismantled the automaton with ice and freeze the metal with magic."

"Goddess?" Luna's voice raised with anticipation as she held his collar and pulled him closer. "What goddess, Apollyon?" She demanded, "Who was it?"

"It was our—" Apollyon shook his head as he hesitated to speak, weighing his words.

Luna squinted at him because it felt like he was omitting something that he should have said.

After careful consideration, he uttered  the words, "It was the Goddess of the Underworld, Hecate."

"Oh my goddess, Apollyon!" Luna exclaimed, giddy with excitement.

If she wasn't pregnant, she could stand up, jump up and down the bed, and break the bed frame.

"She was here? Why was she here?" Luna said in a whisper-shout as a flood of happiness swept over her that her emerald eyes were probably shining right now. "Maybe, she desired to meet me and talked to me about the purpose of her mark on my chest!"

"No, wife." Apollyon said wryly. "It wasn't because of you."

Her arms crossed over her chest.  "Have you talked to her?"

"No."

Apollyon was victorious at dampening her mood.

"You don't even know the reason." She jutted her chin and replied,  "I want her to explain in personal."

"No. I wouldn't let you." He told her, and his tone was final. "We will stay here until the dust settled."

"Why would we run away and scape the garden, husband? She wasn't a threat." Luna reasoned out as her hands clutched the coverlet in frustration. "I haven't seen her form in this Material Realm, either."

Luna pondered if it was still the same when she brought her to the Goddess' Kingdom.

Her husband interrupted her musings. "I wasn't aware that they were allowed to step foot at the Earthly Realm in this era, so I was shocked to see them assume a physical form."

Them?

"So there is more than one goddess?"

That escalated quickly.

Apollyon's lips curved upward in a sardonic grin, yet he wasn't revealing anything. "Their appearance weren't blinding to the eyes so I assumed it is not their not powerful, corporeal form."

In the past, the gods and the goddesses used to roam around the Earthly Realm freely.

"Maybe, she was here because of an urgent matter?"

Chuckling softly, he remarked, "It is an urgent circumstance, indeed."

"Husband." Now, she was pissed off. "Could you just tell me what it's all about and quit the cryptic replies?"

Luna glowered at him.

"Alright." Apollyon responded with exquisite politeness that was almost sarcastic. "Hephaestus and Hecate is at the entrance fighting with their mythical creatures."

"What?!

"Why are they fighting in  the Summer Courts?!"

"It was Hephaestus himself who dropped the stone, killing the aristocrats with his wildfire." Apollyon waved a dismissive hand. "I wouldn't reveal more. I'm am relieved that we weren't there to take part in the destruction. You and the baby could finally relax to  your heart's content."  She observed that Apollyon's brilliant gaze smoldered for some reason. "Lie back down and sleep. Now."

"How could I sleep if my mind was already wide awake when you disturbed me?" Luna inquired, "I vaguely recall you jiggling my shoulders too much that my brain thought there was an earthquake."

"I'm sorry, wife." Apollyon's hungry gaze moved over her before he bent his neck forward to kiss her on the neck, "But it's either you sleep or I will keep you up until the morning."

"Apollyon, this isn't the time to think about that." Luna persisted quietly, " I want to meet her and  you can't change my mind."

"No." He placed his hands on her shoulders and forced her to lie down as he settled himself on top of her, his knees on either side of her slender form.

"You can't stop me."

Closing her eyes, Luna willed for the mattress to dissolve around them as she created the portal with her mind.

As she laid from the bed, a huge chasm opened below Luna, sucking her whole body.

She brought Apollyon with her since the Vampire King was on top of her.

Both of them passed the black hole, connecting between two present locations.

Flapping her arms as if she expected it would grow her wings in an instant,  her neck stretched as she glanced around her surroundings.

She helplessly floundered from the unexpected fall.

Luna met Hecate's eyes when she fell from the sky in the middle of a battle.

She noticed that Hecate was making sure the dragon remained in pieces as she controlled the restless souls and demons to hold the broken bronze metals and crushed them into smaller pieces, preventing them from morphing back together and animate the dragon.

In that split-second glimpse of them fighting by the arbor at the entrance, Xerxes fought with the man who wore a golden bull mask as he wore a midnight blue tunic which had the universe painted in them.

Luna assumed it was Hephaestus.